To ask those of you who have a later family dinner get young dc to bed on time?

[Newtothis2015]

My 2 and 6 year old normally eat dinner at 4.30pm with me, there dad gets home at 6pm and reheats his later. I have been doing a trial of us all eating dinner at 6pm and it is not working for the following:
1: dd is starving after school and is eating a dinner sizes snack after school (think toast, biscuits, cheese, sausage rolls, Apple, all at once!)
2: it takes youngest dd 45 minutes to eat dinner as she is slow and steady and has a pudding too which she also eats slow and steady
3: dh sometimes has a late lunch at work and doesn't always want to eat straight after work
4: I am tired by 6.45pm and am slow at cleaning the kitchen
5: the kids are not in bed until 7.30 with a 6 dinner and take an hour to fall asleep so are not asleep until 8.30 and do not want to wake in the mornings

Shall I put this down as not working? Or are there any of you who manage a 6pm dinner and kids asleep by 7pm? If so how do you do it??

We went to a one size fits all dinner when the dcs were 6 and 8. I was totally fed up of cooking twice.But I honestly don't think we could have done it earlier.

Feel like a right shit mother reading this! I have a 10 year old and a one year old and work full time (so does husband). Kids have a cooked lunch at nursery/school at 11am/12 midday respectively.
Nursery do a finger food tea at 4pm though I have witnessed it and most of it ends up on the floor or in the pelican bibs, lol!
Son has a cooked tea including pudding at about 4.30 at after school club. The portions are quite small though.
We all get home between 6 and 7 by which time kids are ravenous again and have a small second supper. This is usually leftovers from the adult dinner the night before (but if not suitable for baby she has some cheesy mashed veg and yoghurt) plus fruit for both.
One year old bathed and bed by 8 (she still has a 2.5-3 hour nap in the day).10 yo bed at 9 and reads until 9.30.
Me and husband take turns to cook and often don't eat until after 9.
Weekends we have a very similar timetable though we breakfast/lunch together and 10 yo often eats dinner with us at 8ish. Kids are given snack around 4 to keep them going.
They sleep blissfully and have to be woken in morning. We all lie in until 9 at weekend. I'm convinced they'd be up at 6 if I hadn't fed them since 4 the previous day (but I'm probably just trying to convince myself I'm not a rubbish parent for keeping such "continental hours"!) They could both eat for Britain but are barely on 25th centile.Kids are all so different. Families too, evidently.

Why would you feel shit Honey

Working mother guilt haha. My mother thinks it's awful the kids eat so late, she calls it the house of Spanish hours. It does seem unusual for this country (less so elsewhere in the world). But I only give half a fuck I suppose. They seem happy and healthy.

Ah, sod that. No point in guilt .I'm a SAHM at the moment and my 1.5 year old still goes to bed around 8 with the big kids and eats with us after 6. On holiday we can shift it about an hour or so later over a few days (any more than that and they just wake up at the same time and lose sleep). Do what works for you.

I don't believe all kids are endlessly flexible. Some will wake at 6 come what may and you have to roll with it. But other friends put their kids to bed at 6.30 becasue they 'want an evening' and are baffled they wake at 5.30/6 every day!

Thank you libraries! You made me smile. Yes it does work for us. I'd rather have a lie in than "an evening" I think! I'm still also loving the long midday nap. I'll be sorry when that goes.

BTW one size fits all was at 7pm with a really decent snack at 4, 6yo in bed at 8 and 8yo at 8:30. Now they are 9 and 11 dinner is at 7:30-8 bed for 9yo 8:30-9 11 year old 9-930 unless it's the apprentice or the rugby ....

We eat at 6pm. DC (5&3) in bed by 730 usually. Eldest wakes 530-6, youngest any time between 6 -830 (depends if she's had a daytime nap recently)

They don't get a snack after 4pm unless I know DH is going to be late home so we'll eat late.

My children generally didn't eat until around 6.30 when they were younger as on the days I worked, I didn't get home until about 5.45 p.m.. They had a snack at about five at nursery/afteschool club or at home. They didn't go to bed until about 8 or 8.30 p.m. though.
Now that they are teenagers I have attempted to give them food later (7-7.30 p.m.) so that we can eat together but they have really moaned about it. Apparently all their friends (all teenagers) eat at about 5 p.m!

My children (3 and 1 years old) eat with us at 6.30-7pm, bath time at 7.45, bedtime is not until 8.30. They do sleep until around 7.30am when we all have breakfast together and leave for work/nursery at 8am. This works fine for us, and we get to see them in the evenings and "chat" over dinner. We all eat the same, so only one lot of cooking. People are sometimes surprised when the visit, but it's normal for us (both of us work full time).

yes adult couple time is important, but so is family time - and if we put DC to bed at 7 to have óur evenings, we practically wouldn't see them during the week. So family time until 9, and there is still plenty of evening left between 9 and whenever we go to bed ourselves.

saying that, the adult time does tend to look rather like this..

For those of you who put young dcs (not those that still nap though) to bed at 9pm so they need less sleep than average? My 5 year old needs 12 hours, so if I put her to bed at 9 she wouldn't wake up until 9 the next day. and that's if she fell asleep straight away. That would be impossible on a school day. My toddler would be fine though as she still has a nap.

New - my 5 year old sleeps 11 hrs a night. Bed at 9pm, wake 8am.

I guess that's why it doesn't work for me, my dd takes an hour to drift off to sleep, I have no idea why. She also has to be up at 7am as she takes so long to eat her breakfast, get herself ready and ages to do a poo (sorry tmi!) and keeps getting distracted by her sister. We leave at 8.20. Her sister sonetimes needs a poo too sometimes a change of clothes. I'm jealous of all these people who can do things quickly, especially one post with dinner at 6.30pm and bed at 7pm! When we eat at 6.30pm the dc won't be finished food and drink until 7pm, 15 minutes for food to go down so 7.15, clean teeth and pjs and a poo or wee for both children would take this to 7.30pm minimum, then school book until 7.45pm and then time to fall asleep so we end up with an asleep time of about 8.45pm, I would love to know how to do all that in 30 minutes! I put two dc to bed on my own could that be the reason? I'm not sure. And ideally I would like them to have more than 15 minutes for food to go down or the oldest gets heart burn and the youngest terrible wind going to bed on a full tummy. So that would push bedtime past 9pm for a 6.30pm dinner. I must be going wrong somewhere!

New - it's because yours take ages to sleep. I suggest reading school Book aka concentrating hard isn't great before sleep.

Here routine is something like:
7pm home. Listen to school reading with other parent cooks
7.30-8pm eat
8-8.30pm quiet puzzles/ drawing
8.30pm wash faces/ hands or quick shower ( baths weekends only), pjs on, toilet
8.45pm in bed, story.

We have two to put to bed, they get in shower together, and have story before bed together. They usually fall asleep together in our bed also! Occasionally their own. They are both asleep within 5 mins

In the morning:
8am wake, up teeth, dress
8.15am eat
8.40am leave

Everything is ready night before so they just grab it from next to bed and put on. Dh and I are awake much earlier so breakfast is ready basically when we wake them.

Mine are asleep within 5 minutes of going to bed and don't have any digestive problems, so that is why it is quicker.

Newtothis we take ages too, I think it's congenital faffing. It always surprises me when I'm looking after other people's children. I ask them all to put their shoes on, and the visitors have put them on and headed out of the front door while my 2 are just thinking about maybe making their way to the hall at some point in the future!

Your issue is how long she takes to fall asleep. I suspect if she always takes that long she probably doesn't need a much sleep as you think. What if you tried a later bedtime - how long does it take then?

We have a small tea snack at 430, or at least the nursery does then dinner/supper at 730 and bath bed at 8pm ish...

I think op if it works for you what's the issue? We eat at 6 ish, but then the children go to bed when they go to bed, I don't have a fixed time for it really. It may be as early as 7 if they are particularly grouchy but more often than not it's around 8 or 9 I refuse to give big snacks after school dc's responsibility to eat well at lunch. But we're all different and personally I think 6 is early but I'm too lazy to do 2 part dinners.

I guess I'm also lucky that we have no issues around bed time and sleep, it depends on the whole family it really does.

New to this does an average 5 year old need 12 hours sleep? I think 12 hours is a lot for a 5 year old, don't mean to criticise I wish my 3yo and 6yo slept that long

My 6 year old does generally need about 11 hours.So.eetimes 12. But it sounds as if the OPs DD is often getting more like 10.

I dont necessarily think.theres a problem with the child not being able to sleep and that's how they are.

more that when you are in a hurry or time.is limited, being rushed or shouted at and generally not getting five mins leave to get in the door and unwind before being sent to do whatever is needed to be done just creates a high stress environment and dealing with a long lists if instructions to have to do in a shirt space of time can be more than some kids can process.

I do agree that some kids just take a long time to go to sleep. Others take a long time to go to sleep when they aren't tired when put to bed. I do think it's worth trying to work out which one it is.